How to keep emotionally in contact.

Sep 21st, 2014 - Written by: Jane

When you find yourself in the heartbreaking situation of being denied contact with a grandchild or grandchildren, you ask yourself constantly, how will they know I still love them and that I have not forgotten them?

Just because you are unable to seem them doesn’t mean that they have somehow disappeared, it is important to keep in contact, emotionally.

Grandparents are at a loss as to what they can do to keep memories of those wonderful children alive.

Often sending gifts is not an option, that could be because grandparents feel that the children don’t ever get them, it could be that they don’t even know where their grandchildren are now living.

In my own experience, I know that my grandchild was told that the gifts we had been sending were in fact from someone else. She told me that the last time we saw her.

So what can you do from a practical point of view?

You could open an savings account for them, so at birthday or Christmas times add to the account, if you know where they are you could send them a card explaining that you have set up an account for them, and that they will be able to access it when they are older.

Your family is their family too, so record family events, that could be in a journal that you write in or in the form of photos, a little like a scrapbook. There are no limits to what you choose to put in it, its part of you giving them a running history of day to day family life.

In this world of technology how about setting up a blog, exactly the same thing really as the journal but done on the computer. Keep it light and newsy and certainly not judgemental in any way.

If you are into Twitter, set up a twitter account in their name and just comment briefly about you and yours.

A word of caution, never use blogs,etc to air your personal views of their parents, resident or non-resident, it is not the place at all for the ‘blame game.’ Children find themselves in this difficult position, a conflict caused by the adults, not them. Don’t involve them.

When was the last time you sent them a postcard?

Postcards are always a great way of keeping some form of communication because they are open, so anyone who wants to can read it, non-threatening to everyone.

When I suggest to grandparents to write, they will often say, “ What is the point, they probably won’t get it.” My response is that if you send a card or letter, there is a chance that they will see it, if you don’t send one they certainly won’t see it!

For those of you who like words, writing poems about your grandchildren is not only therapeutic but it is a wonderful way to keep emotionally in contact with them.

If you are reading this thinking, that it is just not worth it, think again.

A grandchild who recently was reunited with their grandparents was given a memory box, that they had kept up to date for him. He had been told that his grandparents didn’t care about him and had never bothered about him, he had made the decision himself to find them as he was older, after an emotional discovery of all the photos, letters, cards he could see that they did care and were bothered and had never stopped loving him.